


The Best Defense

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Prosecution [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Allison is Stiles's Captain, Derek is a defense attorney, I need more coffee, Jackson is an accused serial killer, M/M, Oh so very AU, Shut up I can make bad puns, So AU it's golden, Stiles is a detective for NYPD, and Scott is a donut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:43:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is Detective on one of the biggest murder cases of the century, and Derek turns out to be the defense attorney--which they only find out after they've dragged each other to bed and are facing each other over the witness stand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Hit Me Once, I'll Hit You Back

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the incomprable trekwolf on Tumblr, without who I would've stalled out on this bastard of a brain child. Enjoy, my freaky darlings!

Stiles Stilinski had had trial the next morning for the biggest murder case in the city. Jackson Whittemore, heir to the Whittemore family fortune, had killed six people in little under a week for no apparent reason. Stiles had managed to crack the case even without a motive, and in response, his best buddy Scott decided celebrating would be taking him to a gay bar. (Scott having marriage troubles because his wife's family was out of their fucking minds and Stiles being gay.)

Of course, it found him at eleven at night alone at the bar ignoring the toxically pink _thing_ Scott had bought as his first drink, laughing to himself as Scott went from being assaulted by drag queens to eyed by a tall, curly-haired guy that looked like he was about sixteen. Stiles, because he also looked like he was sixteen, still, at twenty-seven, recognized the signs of a fellow cutie-pie, and let Scott blush and bluster his way through figuring out the guy hitting on him was actually legal on his own. The seat next to Stiles pulled out, and glancing over had yielded an eyeful of the most mind-numbingly gorgeous man to ever exist in the history of ever. And from there, it was like most nights Stiles went to the bar: Stiles gave the name he preferred instead of his real one, and only the first name; when the option arose, he picked his place, not theirs; and he fully intended on one of them leaving the other cold come the next morning. What he got was an intelligent, if kind of grouchy, sardonically funny guy whose smile was really making it hard to fathom leaving him cold, so hopefully he wouldn't start to take to the good old Stilinski charm. Getting from the guy's Camaro to Stiles's apartment was a test of moral decency, and Stiles had an orgasm in the hallway, gave a blow job just in the door, and was rimmed to the point where his new bedmate had to carry him to the bed because his legs weren't going to hold out and this guy was impatient once he was getting what he wanted. By the time they'd wrestled each other out of their clothes, Stiles knew he was in deep shit. This guy was _gorgeous_. He was dizzyingly beautiful, and while he was looking at Stiles with much the same appreciation, Stiles knew that would change come sobriety. The first careful breach of Derek Hale's cock in his body sealed the deal for Stiles: if he wanted to stay sane, he couldn't ever see Derek again. Stiles suffered no illusions about not being the kind of cop who'd be married twenty times because his real soulmate was his job. He'd been a cop since he was sixteen, following his sheriff father into the thick of it with nothing but Scott for backup. So this infatuation with the green-eyed Adonis come to life? It couldn't bear repeating. 

Of course, that translated to slow, thorough, I'm-about-to-die-from-the-intensity-of-my-orgasm sex that left Stiles _trembling_ against Derek's chest as they mutually clung to each other. It also translated into waking up an hour later and riding Derek with the both of them half-asleep, and then waking up at dawn to sixty-nine each other into consciousness, shower sex, and then Derek pressing him against the wall and kissing him like it was killing him to go, black stubble rubbing at his cheeks and lips and chin in a completely unfair way. They didn't speak, made no promises of seeing each other or calling each other, and left no way to actually do either. Stiles bit down on being disappointed and got ready for his courtdate, taking another shower and happily discovering he wasn't limping. 

He should have known that things _do not_ go that smoothly for Stiles Stilinski, and never would. 

Derek had changed into an unfair suit; gun metal grey and cut perfectly, his shirt a striking blue that brought his eyes out more blue than green. He hadn't shaved, his high, sharp cheekbones shadowed with stubble that had rubbed patches of flush into Stiles's pale skin over and over the night before. "Tell me that that's the new ADA."

Stiles's partner, Matt Daehler, looked over, "Nope, that's Whittemore's new defense attorney. Guy's never lost a case, the Whittemores flew him in from a class-action lawsuit in _Dubai_." 

Stiles was very, very pale. He was pale anyway, but he'd gone even more pale. 

"What's up, buttercup? I don't think Captain Argent would flip too badly if you wanted to tap that. So long as you didn't." Matt smirked, giving their coffee order perfectly timed to miss Stiles's look of abject horror. 

Derek Hale looked up across the crowd, eyes zeroing in on Stiles, and the look was pleasure, then confusion, then fear. It didn't change much once Stiles was being called to the stand. Derek looked pissed off to the point of Hulking out, gamma radiation or no; and when he stands to start his cross, Derek's face gives away nothing, but his eyes look like the man is dying slowly and in agony, "Is it true, detective, that your relationship with my client's fiancé--Miss Lydia Martin--stemmed from your...how did she put it? Years-long obsession?" 

"I had a childhood crush on Miss Martin," Stiles allowed, feeling rage building up higher and higher. 

"Do you still have feelings for her?" 

"Objection!" Erica snapped, her brown eyes blazing from the persecution table. 

"Your honour, I would merely like to point out to the jury that Detective Stilinski has motive, means, and opportunity to plant evidence that my client is guilty--" 

Stiles was going to snap him in half. Sure, Derek was all pretty muscles, but Stiles had been taught by some of the best how to fight and how to win. He would not take this shit from someone who'd looked so damned good in his bed not a few hours ago. Someone who'd left him dangerously happy. 

Erica was in an outrage, demanding and getting a continuance, her glare only slightly cooling as Stiles opened his mouth to apologize or beg for forgiveness or something. "You didn't do anything wrong, Stilinski. You followed the evidence and it led you to a guy everyone actually hates. Go home. I'll sort this mess out, Batman." Erica kissed his cheek, watching him walk off. 

Mostly because if she didn't, he'd've ended up punching opposing council. As it was, when opposing council appeared on his doorstep two hours later, Derek proved to take his left hook very well, considering he'd dropped gang bangers Derek's size or bigger. Derek recovered and pushed his way inside, slamming Stiles against the hall wall and pinning his wrists, looming despite their equal heights. "Let me go, you fucking son of a--" Derek's hand covered Stiles's mouth, forcing his jaw closed menacingly. Stiles kneed up hard, getting Derek in the groin and punching him again when his grip loosened. 

Stiles had seen a few brawls in his time. He hadn't started many, and he'd finished most, but this one was down and dirty. 

Derek was big; he was more than well-muscled and, as it turned out, almost as blindingly fast as Stiles was. And, Stiles knew from the sheer intensity of the night before, he had _stamina_. "You used me!" Stiles yelled as Derek managed to get one of his legs over his shoulder, lift Stiles off his feet, and throw him down on the couch, Stiles kicking him to the side, into the coffee table. 

"How the fuck did I do that?! I was just as surprised as you were, believe me!" Derek caught his fist, and his knee, pinning him again. "I wanted to see you again, I did not fucking want to see you in a fucking courtroom!" 

"You had to see I was a detective on the case--"

"What name did you give me?" Derek demanded, the both of them sliding over and around each other, Stiles elbowing Derek hard to the ribs. "What name did you give me?!" Derek yelled, turning slowly purple as Stiles strangled him between his thighs. 

Stiles slowly started to release, Derek barely catching himself before collapsing on top of him. "I...Stiles...and I didn't give you my last name…" Stiles realized. Derek slowly and carefully unwrapped from around him, careful not to hurt him. Stiles pulled himself to sit up, turning Derek's head to look at the damage he'd caused. 

"I came here to talk to you…" Derek mumbled, his hand warm on Stiles's arm as he looked up at Stiles. "Seeing you in that courtroom nearly drove me insane." 

"I'll get you some ice…" Derek's hand fisted in his shirt, pulling him down from moving away. 

Derek kissed him long and hot, resting their foreheads together when they broke finally for air, "This is the worst decision I'll ever make, but I really wanted to see you again." Stiles smiled at the deep, rich quality taking over Derek's voice, subtly rubbing their noses together for a moment before slipping in for another kiss. 

Stiles was still kind of pissed, but Derek was like a drug. "I'm sorry I kneed you, but I'm going to maintain that you deserved the left." 

"You have a really nice left. I didn't take you for a south paw." 

"I'm ambidextrous, but my right hand has neater handwriting, so they don't like it when I break those knuckles." Derek's fingers ghosted over Stiles's knuckles before he folded them up and brought them to his lips. "You're going to be very bad for business." 

"I'm sorry I had to...I...I wanted to ask...do you still have feelings for her?"

Stiles snorted, "I've been her best gay friend since senior year of high school. She wanted me to be her man of honour. She's like a sister to me now. And, actually, you might have deserved the nutshot." 

"Stiles, I am sorry. When I saw it was you, I _hoped_ that that angle was wrong, but, Stiles, looking at the timeline of the evidence...it's fucking weird. For months, no one could catch a break, not even a little, and then suddenly you started finding clues enough to crack the case?" Stiles paused with a fistful of ice and towel. "I'm not casting aspersions on your detective work, Stiles, but…" Derek clammed up, and Stiles walked back out to his living room with the ice to Derek's scowl pointed down at his hands. 

"Derek, it was a break in the case--"

"I know how guilty men feel, Stiles. I can sense it. Jackson Whittemore? He's not the one that did this. I'd be willing to quit the case, Stiles, in a heartbeat, but Jackson does not deserve to go to prison and if I can--" 

"Derek, stop. I...I never liked Jackson for the murders. I never liked him at all, but the evidence led me there. You think the evidence was planted?" 

"Think about it. For _months_ there was nothing, then, suddenly, Jackson was leaving trace? Killers get sloppy, I know that, but they don't get this sloppy when they started out this good." Stiles pressed the ice to Derek's jaw, his fingers trembling as his mind started moving five thousand miles a second. "If it'd been your partner on that stand, I would've went after him, but getting the idea of reasonable doubt in there--" 

Stiles held up a hand to silence him, "You think that someone's planting evidence…" Stiles blinked slowly, and his amber eyes slowly focussed back on Derek from the sheer crushing blow of information his mind was processing all at once, "I'm not going to report you to the bar, and you're going to show me what your thinking is through the evidence, and then…" _you and I will never see each other again._

Derek shook his head once, "I'll quit the case and lose before agreeing to not seeing you--" He argued, eyes flaring with anger, and Stiles couldn't stop it; he was kissing Derek the next breath, sucking on his lower lip and then his tongue, long fingers gripping his hair, "Stiles--Stiles, I fucking mean it, I won't--" 

"I am married to my job--"

"I just flew in from _Dubai_ , I live in _California_ , I know what being married to your job entails, and I don't fucking care." Stiles went when Derek's hands coaxed him into straddling Derek's thighs, moaning as Derek's hand ran down the small of his back to his ass, squeezing gently as Derek licked his way into Stiles's mouth. "I want this--I want you--and I'm not going to agree to staying away from you here." 

"You could lose your license to practice law, and you defend--"

"The people I've agreed to defend have been actually innocent." 

"Your gut telling you this?" 

"There have been cases when a crime by the blind standards of the law was committed, but people are not blind; circumstances left them seeing disaster, and they did what they could to protect themselves against it." 

Stiles and he stared off for a long time, Stiles taking a deep breath slowly. "You are risking the job you're married to?"

Derek shrugged, "It's not the job I'm married to so much as it is helping make sure that people don't go to jail for things they haven't done." 

"Class-action suit in Dubai?" 

"If I'd cared, I would've seen it through." Derek tells him. Stiles takes that to mean that Derek had found no innocence there whatsoever, and that whatever draw had gotten him there was trumped to bring him back. "Stiles, the serial killer could still be out there; and, worse, they could be someone you know." 

"I don't like this." 

"But your dad was a great cop, and he taught you how to be a great cop, so you're going to do it even if you don't like it. I'm sorry that you have to." Stiles sighed softly, and kissed him, because he could and he wanted to. Because he'd been ignoring the instinct pulling at him that it'd all gone so damn easy so suddenly that there had had to be something wrong with what he was reading into the clues, and Derek had pulled it out and made him acknowledge it.

"You're going to be the death of me." Stiles muttered. 

"Not if you kill me first." 

Stiles made coffee and listened as Derek told him what he'd found reviewing the evidence, justifying how it could be planted or manufactured, but neither of them could parse why it was Jackson being framed--just as they couldn't parse why the victims had been those people. 

Stiles was draped over the armchair, hand over his eyes and the other curled around his fifth coffee of the day as he and Derek bickered over it. "It wasn't you, sure, but someone close to you, maybe--someone who felt you'd been done wrong and wanted to avenge you?" 

"Lydia was _years_ ago. Before my type shifted to tall, burly dudes with big hands and earnest eyes. I don't even know if anyone on the force _knew_ before it was brought up for the world to see today." Derek didn't comment on the venom in Stiles's tone, and Stiles slumped apologetically, resolving to let it go that he was outted for having that particular old flame. 

"You and Jackson and Lydia all went to high school together back in Beacon Hills, right?" 

"Yeah. Actually, most of us ended up out here. Erica Reyes was in our class; Scott; Captain Allison Argent...senior year, Lydia wanted to go to college over here, and she bullied me into it so we'd be close. Jackson followed her out here around the time she was going after the Fields Medal--he'd ejected his head from his ass and finally come after her--and Scott came out after me. Allison and he had been dating on and off, and he came out when they were off, then she followed him because she wanted to get it back on and he hadn't been there for that to happen."

"Argent would know, then." 

"She's a bridesmaid in their wedding. …But Jackson flirted with her. He was trying to break up her and Scott for a little while. Passed it off as being friendly to her at the time, but he was a douche bag of epic proportions. She could be holding some sort of grudge...but I don't think it'd be her. She wasn't close enough to the case." Stiles rolled his shoulders, easing tension out of his back as he settled even further into the cushions of his couch. "The victims all came from the same high school and were in the same year, but that's as far as consistencies go. None of them crossed paths otherwise." 

"So the motive could be something from that one point of connection." Derek muttered, sounding just as frustrated and tired as Stiles did. It was valid; it's not like they got much sleep the night before.

"That's a horrifying thought." Stiles muttered blatantly. "I did things in high school that could've gotten me dead, sure, but to be tracked down and slaughtered for it later? Yeah, this has all the earmarks of a good cautionary tale." 

Derek looked stormier than he had a moment ago, edging over to him and sitting close. "There's no way to know what it'd be that started this if it is, is there?"

"Not really." Stiles sighed, "But it is something to look into. If we go with the assumption, then looking into people who attended the same high school could point us to the real killer." 

Derek looked thoughtfully at his own cup of coffee for a long moment before he changed the subject, "Why is Allison Argent a Captain?"

"Meaning why am I not?" Stiles smiled slightly, looking down at his hands, "I love being a cop. I love being a detective. Helping people. Catching the killer. The bureaucracy has never been my forte, and it never will be. My dad was the same way, but Beacon Hills was small enough that he could be sheriff and still be a cop and get in the thick of it. He was thrown into being sheriff, anyway. His predecessor was dirty, let a huge case fall. My dad still has the evidence box and his notes, still pulls them out and stares at them trying to figure it out." Stiles shrugged, meeting Derek's gaze finally. "Allison can kiss-ass with the best of them, but I don't pull my punches, political or otherwise, and I won't even if it blacklists my career." 

Derek was silent for a long time, staring at him with something close to awe in his eyes, though his mouth was tilted in a small smirk. "You may be the most honourable and decent man in the city." 

"I'm a blasted fucking fool. But I'll...I'll look into it. Into this. It felt too easy, so I might've known that a mysterious hottie would walk up to me and complicate it because my life is a damn noir novel." 

Derek snorted, "If you're putting me in the role I think you're putting me in, I'm going to get shot." Stiles scowled and pouted, his cheek on his hand as he stared at Derek pensively. Derek leaned forwards, into Stiles's space, but not quite close enough to kiss him, "That case that got away. What was it?" 

"Fire. Eleven dead. It was ruled an accident by a fraudulent dick. It was arson, my dad always knew it." Stiles mumbled, wanting Derek to close the distance and kiss him. 

Derek's eyes flashed up to his eyes from staring at his lips, looking at him through his fringe of black lashes with a strange expression riding his impossibly perfect features, "Did you ever look at the file?" 

"N-No." Stiles felt unease well up, his heart beating faster. Derek twitched, his eyes glancing down to Stiles's chest like he could hear it, but his eyes were pinning Stiles where he was in the next breath. 

"Ask him," Derek's mouth was against the corner of Stiles's briefly, just a brush as he lowered his head down and put his teeth to Stiles's jugular, leaving a bruise, "the family name of the victims...and the names of the survivors." Derek pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, getting up and turning for the door before Stiles could tamp down on the unease or get his throat to demand what was going on. "I'll see you later, Stiles. Be safe." 

Stiles was up and after him in the next heartbeat, but he managed to be long gone by then.


	2. What If I Can't Forget You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This? You and I? It's a bad idea...but I'm awesome at making those work out for me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating change! 
> 
> Dedicated to the incomparable Science-of-rrrrr, the freakiest of my darlings; and to trekwolf still (always), because, again, this story wouldn't have gone past an idea if not for trekwolf.

It wasn't so much that Stiles was actively trying not to be safe, as it was that he lived the kind of life that led to...lapses, lets call them, in safety. 

He was collaring a--for lack of a better term--mobster in one of the nastier club districts three days later when someone literally unleashed the hounds on him, three guns drawn, and his back up suddenly not there anymore. 

Well, Stiles had had a lot of practice running for his life every time he followed his dad out to a crime scene, so causing a disaster the likes of which only he could cause got him away from the guns and the thugs, but he didn't have a handy steak to throw the dogs, and there weren't enough bullets to shoot the dogs and the bad guys both. 

Stiles knew he wouldn't be able to really outrun the dogs, but if he could get to Matt, then there'd be a hope in hell of not getting chomped on. 

Of course, that all went to Hell really quite easily in a dead-end alley. A back door to one of the clubs opened, and Stiles headed for that. 

Naturally it was Derek stepping out of that door, eyes flashing eerily blue in the light as he turned to look. Derek reached for Stiles, yanking him in as the heavy door swung shut behind them, positioning himself between Stiles and the veritable hellhounds. 

The veritable hellhounds who reacted to Derek like frightened pups, pressing their stomachs to the ground, skittish and crying. Stiles clung to Derek's arm, feeling downright woozy as he struggled to breathe. Derek brought him close, tilting his face up to look at him, eyes raking over him carefully. "Are you hurt?" 

Stiles shook his head, ducking down against Derek's chest as Derek's grip keeping him steady transformed into a hug, his thumb rubbing behind Stiles's ear. Stiles pulled himself together, meeting his gaze. There were others coming, now. Matt and uniforms by the sounds of things. The backdoor to the bar Derek had come out of opened once more, but Derek pulled him into a kiss for a hot moment, and Stiles let himself hope it was a promise. 

Stiles opened his mouth to speak, and Derek shook his head, nuzzling his cheek as their time ticked down until everyone would catch up. "Tell me later, I'll be waiting for you." Derek bit Stiles's lower lip softly, keeping it for a breath before he was releasing Stiles carefully and disappearing back through the door, Stiles turning fully to see Matt pounding up with his gun drawn, the dogs ducking their heads in submission and whimpering as Matt edged around them slowly, the look of bewilderment on his face almost insulting if Stiles hadn't been on just the same damn page. 

Getting through the rest of the night was like holding his breath under water, eeking out moments that felt like eternities between living and letting the water in. 

Stiles didn't know why he relaxed when he found his door unlocked, but he could almost _feel_ that it was Derek, laid back over his couch with a hand over his eyes and a book on his chest, waking up immediately as Stiles crept into the apartment as quietly as he could. Derek sat up, clearing his throat and looking only slightly muzzy, eyes sweeping over Stiles efficiently, checking for injuries again. 

Stiles put his gun and badge away, leaving his wallet on the table and passing over to Derek before either of them spoke. Derek's eyes were huge and the sunken, bruised mess of the sleep-deprived, his Adam's apple bobbing as he watched Stiles move to sit on the coffee table in front of him, reaching out to touch his cheek softly. He let the worry and the care he was feeling bleed out onto his features, into his touch, coaxing Derek in and down until his forehead rested in the cradle of his shoulder and neck, shaking hands framing his thighs. Stiles reached up, carding his fingers through Derek's jet hair. 

Derek's breathing caught like he was about to speak, but Stiles simply pressed a kiss to his hair, taking his hands and leading him up, gently moving them into the bedroom and stripping them both down to their underwear, scooting back on the bed with Derek's hand in his because Derek hadn't moved on his own. Derek knelt down, staring at Stiles for a long moment before he laid down, pulling Stiles against him, curling around him with one hand spread over Stiles's chest, the other cradled under his head as he pressed kisses into the line of Stiles's arm, nuzzling down into him tangled up and wonderfully safe. Derek slept with his back to the door, between Stiles and both points of entry, his arms secure around Stiles and every single thing about him at ease as Stiles wrapped around him with his whole body in his sleep. 

It was pouring rain when they woke up the next day, the kind of day that just begged for a longer time in bed. Stiles pushed his fingers slowly through Derek's hair, scrubbing lightly when he pushed up into the touch and let his eyes fall shut. "What's going on?" Stiles mumbled. 

Derek swallowed thickly, shaking his head as he pushed into Stiles's embrace, pulling him in tighter and pressing against him completely. 

"I'm more than happy to be your teddy bear, but you should tell me what's had you looking so drained." Stiles pressed his palm to Derek's jaw, turning his head. Stiles placated himself that what he'd say next was nothing bigger than the intent Derek had already promised him; that it was alright to feel so involved already, to feel so close. "I'm worried about you." Stiles whispered, tracing his fingertips over the hard, perfectly angular lines of Derek's face. 

"Don't be," Derek whispered back, kissing his fingertips, "you're the one I've been worried about. I couldn't stop thinking about you. What you said," Derek curled his fingers down, sucking gently on the tip of one and nipping the pad before he moved on to the next, "about how you'd done things in high school that could've gotten you killed…" Derek's eyes were mesmerizing as he bit the meaty part of Stiles's hand, just under his thumb, and nuzzled into his wrist before nipping and kissing there, "it worried me."

"Last night isn't the norm." Stiles breathed, pulling Derek up so he could kiss him, long and lazy. "And even last night, I had backup and a knight in shining Armani." 

"Mmm, that's not Armani, but nice try." Derek smirked at him, stealing another kiss. "I've lost a lot, Stiles." 

Stiles dragged his fingers over Derek's shoulder, grip firm on the back of his neck. "Are you backing out?"

" _No._ " 

"I can't promise you I won't get hurt...but I will tell you that I do my best, every day, to keep myself out of harm's way. The worst injury I've ever had was a broken collarbone in high school." Derek's eyebrows raised, his mouth attaching itself to Stiles's collarbone. "Lacrosse accident." Stiles told him, a little breathless as Derek mouthed along his skin. "Jackson's fault, actually." 

Derek made a noise of dislike with his mouth full of Stiles's skin, his hands gentle running down Stiles's flanks and down to his thighs. Stiles wrapped his legs around Derek's waist, coaxing him up for a long, hot kiss. "Do you have to work today?"

"No, you?"

Derek shook his head with a small smile curling his lips, angling Stiles's jaw and licking into his mouth. Derek's arm slid underneath him, scooping him up and sitting back on his haunches with Stiles locked around him. Stiles nuzzled into the side of Derek's throat, pressing soft kisses there as Derek's fingers pressed against his skin, his skin hot against Stiles's. "When all this is over, I'm taking you on an actual date." 

"We can date here in the meantime. Food, movies...easy access to a bed…" Derek licked his way into Stiles's mouth, kissing him bruisingly hard. "You can appear mysteriously out of the shadows and save my life."

"I will do that if necessary, but I want to make it known now that I don't like it that you life needed saving." 

"The dogs wouldn't have killed me. Just mauled me a little." 

"Stiles, they bite in the right place and you've bled out before Detective Daehler even realizes it's been too long. What were you thinking going there alone?" Derek was still holding him, but sex seemed to be sliding out of Stiles's grasp. 

"It was a show of respect. Right now, Matt and half the New York City police force are frogwalking him out of his goddaughter's wedding with the full count of charges being brought against him instead of simply coming in for questioning. Mattie and Erica don't like it any more than you do when my life is in danger: Matt's told me he'd time it so that they were busting in at the point where you're supposed to object to the marriage." 

"You're all going to get killed." Derek groaned. 

"What did you do to the dogs last night, and can you teach me?" Derek shot him a questioning look and Stiles shrugged slightly, "Drug dealers are starting to train dogs instead of carrying guns. Dogs aren't illegal. It makes me ill to think about what they do to them to get them so vicious, but if I'm not the one shooting them, more's the better." 

Derek nodded slowly, watching his hand glide of Stiles's skin, "I grew up with a lot of animals. It's about having a bigger presence than they do." 

Stiles nodded thoughtfully, "Not exactly something you can teach." 

"It'd help if you were more comfortable with animals." Derek told him softly, kissing along his hands. 

"I'm not scared of them. Not unless they're vicious, trained killers, anyway." 

"All dogs have a good heart: it's their masters who are the beasts." 

Stiles made a soft noise of agreement that was tinged with sadness and pain, kissing from Derek's shoulder to his heart. Stiles's phone went off, both of them groaning before Stiles reached over to get it, keeping his grip on Derek with his legs to make sure he didn't go anywhere. Derek nuzzled at the bottom of his ribcage where Stiles was stretched out to reach the phone, warring with himself about distracting Stiles from the call or not. Pale, smooth skin sided with him that he really should, and setting his teeth to it earned him a sharp twack to the shoulder, but Stiles's cock stirred, his breathing a little less even. Stiles got through the call quickly, laughing in disbelief as he sank back under Derek, bringing his mouth up for a series of hot, lingering kisses. 

"Everything okay?"

"The bride decked Matt for ruining her wedding, so she's now in custody for assaulting a police officer. He's confessed fully to make a deal to get her out of there, because he probably would strangle her otherwise." Derek looked horrified, and Stiles chuckled. "Just because he loves her doesn't mean he has to like her." 

Derek snorted, shaking his head. "Smart." 

"Nah, it was Mattie, so it wasn't brains so much as luck." Stiles chuckled. He pecked a kiss to Derek's lips, savouring it for a moment before sighing, "I think coffee's in order."

Derek chuckled, running his fingers over Stiles's temple, "I think you have an addiction."

"I do, and I'm starting to get my withdrawal headache." Stiles laughed, leaning in and sucking a kiss on the base of Derek's throat, though he was oddly unmarkable. Derek scooped him up off the bed with him, stupidly muscular and strong, ignoring Stiles squawking at him to set him down on his feet and kiss him silent, morning breath and all. Stiles snagged Derek's shirt before Derek could, ensuring Derek's half-nudity on Stiles's leather couch when Stiles shooed him there, puttering into the kitchen humming to himself. He didn't see so much as feel Derek come over, lingering just shy of being in the kitchen. "So what's been keeping you up nights? Because, I'm awesome, don't get me wrong, but it's not just me, and we both know that." 

Derek looked down owlishly at the island that looked more like some wooden Frankenstein's gurney, fisting his hand against the worn wood, "Did you talk to your father?"

Stiles moved slower, looking over at him with the full sadness and care in his eyes as he nodded. He didn't pity Derek, knew that that wasn't the point, but he wished so hard it hurt that he could've been given the chance to comfort him. Derek tore his eyes away, clearing his throat as he rapped his knuckles against the table once thoughtfully. 

"I...My sister and I always thought it wasn't an accident. We...we thought we knew who'd done it, actually, and it was enough to get us to run. But now that Laura knows it's being looked into, she wants to go back...I can't help but feel she'd end up…"

Stiles laid his hand over Derek's, pushing into his space and tugging him down for a kiss, long and slow. Derek pulled him into the circle of his arms, hiding his face against the column of Stiles's throat and simply breathing. Stiles held onto him tighter, rubbing his back soothingly and pressing his cheek to Derek's. "Has she gone back there now?" Derek nodded into his collarbone, a small, hurt sound in the back of his throat; all worry. "When the trial's over...we should conveniently accidentally visit our mutual hometown. I haven't been in years." Derek's breath stirred against his shoulder, but he nodded again, letting Stiles go slowly, reluctantly, planting a kiss on his lips that was the kind daydreams were made of.

They settled in without Stiles's notes on the case, spending the morning watching television and lazily making out until Derek's phone went off just before noon, making Stiles's arms close around his neck tighter to hang on, shaking his head with his eyes squeezed shut as Derek started to slowly disengage to get it, biting his collarbone with a large hand over his tented boxers. They'd been starting and stopping all morning, and it left Stiles whining against his leather couch when Derek reached to take the call. Spreading his legs over Stiles's, Derek pinned Stiles down with his weight, the hand on Stiles's clothed cock groping as he said a far too calm hello and watched with unfathomable eyes as Stiles bit back some very creative cursing in favour of thrusting helplessly into it. Derek was brusque and short on the phone, leaning over Stiles almost before he'd ended the call and licking into his mouth, swallowing down his moan. 

"Tell me you don't have to go anywhere." Stiles was not above begging. 

"Tomorrow, first thing." 

"Tomorrow I can handle." Stiles panted, pulling them together roughly, Derek's large hands supporting him off of the couch, groping at his ass and spread over his back. "Bed. God, please, fucking take me to bed." Derek took his command as a command, sealing his mouth over Stiles's as he did, pressing him into the hall wall before fumbling through the door blindly, growling as he tore his mouth away and bit into Stiles's shoulder, dumping him on the bed and only keeping his legs under him to wrest Stiles's boxers off, dropping to his knees and swallowing him down before Stiles could even orient that they'd actually made it into the room and that Derek had littered him in the best kind of bruises. Derek pinned his hips to the bed easily, sucking him down like it was his mission in life to get Stiles's brain to ooze out of his ears. Derek moaned as Stiles's fingers slid into his hair, making Stiles cry out with the vibration. Derek growled as Stiles's body bucked at the slow glide of Derek's lips back up his shaft, releasing him with an obscene pop and looking up the length of his body with eyes that seemed to glow in the half-light of the rainstorm through Stiles's curtains. Derek seemed almost feral bending his head down to Stiles's hip and marking him, licking from the blooming stain on his pale skin to the head of his cock once more. Derek swallowed him down again, deep throating him and working his throat around him, forcing Stiles's orgasm from him with no mercy and no warning. Stiles whimpered as Derek drank him down, sucking him until he was spent to the point of feeling nothing but a near-painful tingle from the waist down. 

Derek prowled up his body, licking and sucking at his skin on the way, his hands almost too gentle on his skin for how eager to bruise his mouth was. Stiles curled his fingers in Derek's hair, yanking at him to his mouth, Derek's sudden shift in weight pressing him down against the bed for a wonderfully hot moment before he supported himself again, pulling carefully at Stiles's bent legs and kissing him into relinquishing the kiss, desperate for air. "Turn over." Derek's voice was deep and somehow felt shattering; the want and the possession in those two words making Stiles burn hot and turn fluid. Stiles offered himself up, whimpering at the slow trail of open-mouthed kisses Derek pressed down the line of his spine, sobbing as his cock stirred already--impossibly--as Derek held his cheeks apart and laved his tongue in, working the clench of Stiles's muscles. Stiles felt like crying was possibly an appropriate way to go; his fingers dug into the bed beneath him painfully hard, his head turning to muffle his sounds against the sheets and his back arching in a long, helpless roll because it was just _so good_. Derek's tongue could probably perform miracles, in Stiles's opinion, and not the least of which was getting him hard so quickly after an orgasm like the one he just had. 

Derek bit into the curve of his ass as Stiles managed to pass him the lube with shaking hands, needing _more_ , though more of what, he didn't even care, just so long as he could have orgasms in his future. Derek worked his fingers in carefully, in long, sure strokes that sent jolts of sensation through Stiles that had absolutely no right to be so ruining. Pressing open-mouthed, sloppy kisses along Stiles's flank, Derek twisted his fingers and rubbed into him, ignoring the incoherent gibberish of protests and warning Stiles tried to put into some sort of working order. Stiles tensed around Derek's fingers hard, his toes curling as he came explosively over the sheets beneath him, quivering and boneless as Derek carefully pushed him into his back, working his fingers back out while he lapped at Stiles's stomach and cock with his tongue, sending too much stimulation to Stiles's nervous system and leaving him a gibbering mess in its wake. 

Derek leaned up and kissed him long and slow, kissing away tear tracks Stiles hadn't realized were there and cupping his hand around Stiles's cock and balls when he whimpered into the kiss. Stiles hadn't ever felt more exposed than he did with Derek's eyes shining down on him, the spread of his body over top of Stiles's making him feel tiny and protected. Stiles needed Derek in him yesterday, needed to be closer, needed Derek to feel even a fraction of what he did because Stiles was spiralling into a panic that he wouldn't. Stiles slotted their mouths together sloppily, too shaky still for coordination, dragging blunt fingertips in Derek's skin, trying to pull him in, pull him closer. It scared him, the desperation, but a small part of him wasn’t surprised so much as smug; he'd always known he'd fall like this when he finally let himself fall. 

Derek trailed butterfly kisses over his collarbone, his shoulders, his throat, the hand curved around Stiles's groin shifting just slightly to run the pad of his thumb gently over the bruise he'd marked into Stiles's hip, sending a whole new shockwave of need through Stiles's trembling foundations. "In me. In me, please…" Stiles finally managed, though he wasn't entirely sure he actually knew how words worked anymore. Stiles had had marathon sex before; had had lovers that made him shake to his very core, but Derek? It was like Stiles hadn't ever been touched before, and Derek was taking everything Stiles had to give, whether he knew he had it or not. 

Lining up, Derek inched inside so slowly Stiles felt like he was either going to die, or lose his mind completely. Stiles opened his mouth to beg or scream, and Derek's tongue pressed in, swallowing his sounds as he reached down and pressed his finger alongside his dick where they met, Stiles locking down for a long moment before he went completely boneless, a moan wrenching through him at the sensation of Derek bottoming out at last. Stiles bore down on him, his hand fisted in Derek's hair desperately, getting the point across as Derek worked into a hard, careful rhythm. Curses melted into a jumbled mess as Derek rocked into him hard enough to send jolts of pleasure through every inch of his body, almost but not quite pounding. Derek kissed him like it was the only thing keeping him alive, moving to grip his thighs and pull Stiles's legs up, flexing him in a way Stiles hadn't thought himself capable of. It didn't matter if he'd be sore for it later, because Stiles was screaming suddenly, Derek's cock grinding into his prostate with this new adjustment on every thrust. Stiles didn't even know he'd gotten hard again until Derek released one leg to hook over his shoulder, reaching down to stroke his thumb over a vein in Stiles's cock, teasing his thumbnail under the head. Stiles arched, pushing beneath him desperately. Stiles couldn't summon a scream as he came again, clenching hard around Derek as Derek seemed to get impossibly _bigger_. The last thing Stiles was aware of was Derek's lips gentle and loose against his, his consciousness swept under on the aching prickle of pleasure overcoming him. 

Stiles surfaced enough to feel Derek curved around him, the both of them clean and tucked safe under Stiles's blankets. Derek's fingers entwined with his so that both their arms wrapped around Stiles, Derek's face tucked against his neck. 

"Are you alright?" Derek asked, voice ruined like he'd been the one screaming. 

Stiles bent his head to kiss the closest bit of Derek he could reach, nodding, "Better than alright." Stiles croaked, relaxing into him even further. "This? You and I? It's a bad idea...but I'm awesome at making those work out for me." 

Derek pressed his smile into Stiles's shoulder, resolving to pull Stiles even closer in the circle of his arms once he didn't need to hide the knot he shouldn't have gotten so soon after meeting this pale, perfect man. The man who could be his mate.


	3. It's the End of the World As You Know It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ' _You woke up to kiss me goodbye, took the note I had in my hand, taped it to your forehead and crawled back into bed._ ' Stiles could almost hear Derek laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAY 2 of Living With Realitives For The Holidays: Captain's Log--
> 
> Already underfed and overstressed, and if I watch Star Trek one more time, I'm going to start talking like McCoy, because he is my favourite. I hope everyone's safe and having a happy/merry out there. Infite x's and o's.

Stiles had woken to a note taped to his forehead, another on the pillow Derek had vacated, and an actual paper trail of notes leading Stiles out of the bedroom all the way to the coffee machine--and then one last one on his coffee mug after he'd started the process. Stiles brought all the notes to his table, sitting down with far too happy a smile as he surveyed what Derek had left for him. 

Derek's quiet escape to make his morning meeting had apparently been fraught with peril, his notes ranging from a comment on Stiles's sleeping habits to a frantic search for his pants--ending in ' _And how the Hell did you manage to get them around the ceiling fan, and where was I when you were doing this?_ ' 

Stiles threw his head back and let himself laugh, happiness spreading through him from head to toe as his hand ghosted over one of the hickeys Derek had left on his shoulder, the slight soreness settling into his bones sweetly, leaving the memory of Derek's hands and mouth and eyes. Stiles brought himself out of it with the promise of coffee, dreamily pouring himself a cup while he tried to tear his eyes away from the teeth marks on his hip and inner wrist, forcing himself to ignore the reminders that seemed to ache dully in time with his pulse. Showering and getting dressed had been an exercise in wrestling with himself about the stupid smile on his face, half pretending it wasn't there at all and half chastising himself for being unable to get rid of it. On his third cup of coffee, Stiles found another note taped to the inside of his door, ' _You woke up to kiss me goodbye, took the note I had in my hand, taped it to your forehead and crawled back into bed._ ' Stiles could almost hear Derek laughing. He was laughing, too. The day was chilly, his breath billowing out in front of him as he shivered. "Freezing rain. Gotta love New York winters." Stiles sighed, smiling despite it. 

Getting his phone on the second ring, Stiles cringed inwardly about the name Allison Argent on the display, hopeless about it being an invitation to dinner, " _Stiles, Scott's missing. He left a note saying he was leaving me, he met someone else, what the hell did you do?!_ " 

"Allison, I'm going to hang up on you now and find my best friend. We'll see where we go from there, yeah?" Stiles hung up, his gut suddenly screaming at him as he passed the mouth of an alley. He was off-duty and no one knew where he was, but it was a chance he'd have to take as he ducked down the alley, keeping to the shadows as he approached an argument. Stiles watched as a shady-ass character threw the man in the nice, beige suit up against the alley wall, pulling a knife and pressing it to the man's jaw--the man's jaw that Stiles knew intimately, because that suit was Derek. Stiles drew his back-up from the ankle holster, edging out with the gun drawn and trained on the guy pinning Derek to the brick, "Police! Drop the knife, and step away." 

"Police? Huh. Chewtoy." The guy's voice was wrong, too high and breathy to be sane, and Derek's entire being seemed to fill with tumbling panic. 

The guy seemed to be getting bigger, his eyes flashing red and claws extended from his fingernails and fangs burst from his canines. "Stiles, RUN!" Derek roared, just a moment before the guy leapt for him. Derek swung out, Stiles's instincts going against the ones trained into him--firing the shots for the guy's knees rather than his chest. 

Stiles hit his mark, the man crumpling with the injury to his leg, and Derek struggling past him, Stiles grabbing him as they ran for it. 

"What--Did you see--Derek…" Stiles flashed through with panic, Derek's suit almost shredded over his chest, but the skin beneath intact even with blood on the fabric. "What…?" 

"Stiles, I have to get you home--" 

"Derek, you have to tell me what the hell is going on here." 

Derek looked for the barest of moments like he was going to resist that bit of sound logic and reasoning, but Stiles wouldn't back down. Derek heaved a sigh, taking Stiles's hand and pressing his palm against the skin that should have been torn through; moving it slightly up a second later. "The wound was there...it just healed. I will tell you what you want to know, but we need to get back to your apartment."

Stiles cast a look around; they were only a couple streets over, in another little alcove that saw next to no foot traffic. The difference in temperature from one place on Derek's skin to another was enough to keep him bottled up, his curiosity going insane as they walked to Stiles's place in a roundabout way. Derek stripped off his mostly uninjured suit jacket, then tore through the rest of the shirt, turning when Stiles came up behind him. Stiles's hand was shaking as he felt along the reddened skin, and he didn't realize he was this close to a panic attack until Derek knocked his hand down and cradled his face, stepping into him and leaning down so that they were nearly kissing. Derek simply breathed, though, his eyes skating over Stiles's features like he was drinking him in, eyes half-lidded and dark under his lashes. 

"I'm a werewolf, Stiles. So was that bastard in the alley." Derek told him at last, his hold on Stiles softening even further as Stiles's hands went instinctively for his arms, fingers dimpling the skin under them, his breath stuttering, "I'm a Beta; that guy was an Alpha, though he wasn't mine." 

"A...A werewolf…" Stiles felt like he should have been swaying where he stood, but Derek was holding him steady, "You're a werewolf. Werewolves...werewolves are real." 

Derek's green-grey eyes bled brilliant blue, his canines elongating in his mouth--and that was all Stiles could take in before he was squeezing his eyes closed, suddenly being pressed to sit down then to put his head between his knees. 

Stiles's grip on Derek tightened when Derek tried to disengage. "Just...just...give me a second to rearrange my whole world view...Maybe a couple minutes…You're a fucking _werewolf_!" Derek's big hand cupped around Stiles's head again, keeping his head down. "S-So...he was an Alpha, but not your Alpha?" 

"Correct." 

"You healed because--"

"I have a healing factor, I can heal a bullet wound in under an hour." Stiles whimpered, putting his head back down. 

"Are there many of you…?"

"No. Werewolves are hunted...especially by the Argents." 

Stiles forewent the between-the-legs thing and flopped onto Derek's shoulder, pulling into him, until he was fully in Derek's lap. "So my boyfriend is hunted by my boss, who's becoming by best friend's ex-wife if he's actually the one breaking it off this time. Boyfriend who is a werewolf, and--oh, God, no more blow jobs, no sharp teeth near my dangly bits, no!" 

Derek looked almost more horrified than Stiles did, "Stiles, I--There...Look, I was born a werewolf: my control is something I grew up with, I'd never hurt you." 

Stiles nodded very slowly, accepting that. Derek picked him up like he weighed nothing, sitting down on the couch with him in Derek's arms still, "Super strength...and that whammy you did on the dogs was totally not about having a bigger presence…"

"I have super strength, super speed, and heightened senses. I'm more agile and I have better balance. Wolfsbane and white mountain ash can poison and potentially kill me." Stiles curled further into him with a sound of distress. "Stiles?" 

"I'm okay. I...I think I can deal with this. You're going to have five thousand more questions and I'm going to disappear for research purposes before you get laid again, but I can deal." Stiles leaned his forehead against Derek's neck like all the fight had gone out of him, closing his eyes, "I can deal." 

Derek settled then, eyelashes fluttering as they closed against his cheekbones, his hands soft as he massaged over Stiles's leg and back. "You can deal. And you still…"

"You were fairly fucking determined not to let me go, so this is you getting your wish: now you have me, what are you going to do with me?" 

"Kiss you until I die from it. Take care of you. Whatever you'll let me do." Derek pressed a soft, lazy kiss to Stiles's almost unresponsive lips, leaning their foreheads together. "I knew Jackson was innocent because I can tell when people lie, and he really doesn't know anything."

Stiles nodded into his throat, "Why did that guy attack you?" 

"Because Jackson isn't human...he doesn't know what he is, and neither do any of us." 

"Jackson's not a human?" 

"No." 

"And the Argents hunt monsters." Derek's brow furrowed, but he nodded, "Then I have a plan."


	4. I Would Live My Life To Love You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Years, kisses to all those that didn't get any, and the manditory mono check because I'm betting that's most of Tumblr.

"I did not say it was a good plan." Stiles muttered. Derek looked possibly even more murderous, looming over Stiles's hospital bed, "And the paralysis is wearing off, I'll be going home soon." 

Derek ignored the subtle attempt to get him to leave Stiles's bedside, his hazel eyes blazing. "Had I known for even a _second_ \--"

"Hey, broodybritches, stop it." Stiles cut in, "It wasn't a good plan, there was room for improvement, but it worked anyway. Jackson showed his true, scaly colours, and Allison got a good look at him. Getting paralyzed by goo wasn't a part of the plan, but the rest of the plan worked." 

Derek let out a weighty breath, ducking his head and lowering his voice to a smooth, purring murmur, "You have no idea what getting that call was like." 

Stiles flinched his fingers on the bedspread, not up to being able to move his hand just yet, and Derek read the frustration flashing through his eyes immediately, glancing down and then threading their hands together when he realized what Stiles had been trying to do.

"I want to take you home myself." Derek told him, half-ready for a fight, and half resigned to lose. 

"You know why I can't let you do that." 

Derek deflated slightly, looking over Stiles's limp body on the bed, "Someone's coming." He muttered softly, regret written in every line of his face as he bent over Stiles, daring a kiss. 

"Wait for me at home." Stiles breathed against his lips, trying to raise his arms, to touch Derek in some way to comfort him. 

"Where the hell else would I be?" Derek snorted fondly, knocking a kiss to Stiles's forehead before he simply vanished from Stiles's bedside. 

Scott hadn't been in the ER when Stiles had been brought in, his night off with his new mystery lover--who appeared to be the tall, skinny guy from the bar, his baby-face stark with shared worry. For that alone, Stiles was happy for Scott. "Scott, I'm--I'm fine--" 

"You're paralyzed!" Scott half-wailed, getting all the frantic energy across with far less volume. "Stiles, what--"

"Some kind of toxin...there was a drugs bust earlier, so there's a chance one of the bastards brought in for questioning left it as a present. It's wearing off, though." Stiles told him lightly, wriggling his fingers as much as he could. Stiles continued to shoot pointed looks from Scott to the other man, waiting for Scott to clue in to his manners. He did not have the patience for it, though, "Hi, I'm Stiles Stilinski, Scott's bestie." 

"Oh! Sorry! Stiles, this is Isaac Lahey; Isaac, this is Stiles." Scott's features grew so unbearably fond that Stiles's heart ached a little for his friend. 

"Nice to meet you finally." Stiles commented primly just to make Scott squirm. 

Scott shot him a glare, and Stiles just smirked at him, sighing, "You're going to make me have a conversation with you, aren't you?" 

"I think I'm moving back to Beacon Hills once the Whittemore case is through." Stiles mumbled at the same time as Scott spoke. 

Scott's eyes flew wide, his mouth dropping open, "What?" 

"Allison was my boss here, Scott. You're my best friend. You breaking it off with her puts me in a weird position. And besides that, I want...Beacon Hills still feels like home. So, I can take care of the problem I have with Allison and go home at the same time." Stiles managed to shrug minutely, and his happy dance played over his face. 

"I'm sorry, man." 

"Nah. I knew it'd happen eventually," Stiles flashed a cheeky grin, "besides, we got more bounce in California." 

Scott groaned, and it deteriorated from there, Scott and Stiles teasing each other amiably as Isaac pushed Stiles out of the hospital in his wheelchair, not really paying attention to the embarrassing stories Stiles was spewing about Scott for his benefit, just smiling shyly. Scott loaded him into his car, Stiles griping the whole time that he wasn’t actually invalided, it'd just been a temporary paralysis. "I have shift in about an hour, so we can pick up some food for you and drop you off at your place--"

"Then you'll drive all the way back over here? That sucks, I'm sorry. I would've called Mattie or--" Stiles stopped himself from saying Lydia, snapping his mouth closed. Lydia hadn't spoken to him since he'd brought Jackson in. Scott didn't say anything, just closing the door and moving up to the driver's side, Isaac in the passenger's. "I'm, uh...I'm sorry we had to meet like this, Isaac." 

"Leaves an impression, though." Isaac laughed, "I promise I won't hurt Scott, no specific threats necessary." 

Stiles laughed, "I like you, dude, what the hell are you doing with the overgrown puppy?" 

Isaac looked over the console at Scott then, his smile soft and fond. "He's too good to stay away." 

"Well, Nurse McCall, I approve." Stiles drawled. 

"Thank you, Detective Stilinski." Scott snorted. 

Stiles could walk up to his apartment himself, saying goodbye to Isaac and Scott in the foyer with a flail to get Scott to back off and a warning that he was a grown-ass man, Scott needed to stop mothering him. "Go, man! Go save lives and get funny stories about human stupidity to go with my funny stories about criminal stupidity. Isaac, it was great to meet you, thanks for letting the donut drive your car to pick me up, and don't let him keep you all to himself, he's just trying to make sure he doesn't lose you." 

Stiles made it about halfway up the stairs to his third-floor apartment before Derek was beside him, taking the bags of food smoothly and pulling him close, kissing him and taking his weight. "How do you feel?" 

"Tired, mostly. And a little weird. I think all the adrenaline didn't like not being able to go into fight or flight, so it's taking it out on me now." 

Derek held out his arms, "Let me?" Stiles smiled slowly, shaking his head. He slipped between Derek's arms and kissed him again softly, enjoying being close. 

"I can walk, I'm okay. And, as much as I just want to curl up and make out with you until we die from it, I have to be there when Allison strikes." 

Derek's features darkened, the disagreement all over him, and Stiles just shook his head, taking his hand and squeezing tightly as he started up the stairs again. 

"God, do I want to fall into bed with you." Stiles whined, "That is a thing that has to happen soon." 

"I thought you had to do research?" 

Stiles snorted, "I haven't slept since your furry reveal." Derek looked like he was going to pick Stiles up if only to throw him out the window, and Stiles held up a hand, "In short: research done, get in my bed." 

"I'm going to get in your bed, and you're coming with me, and you're going to get some damn sleep! That was dangerous, Stiles! That could be part of the reason you--" 

"I didn't get hurt. I touched some goo, and it paralyzed me."

Derek squinted at him, "You are far too cavalier about being paralyzed." 

Stiles shrugged, opening the door to the third floor and slipping through to pad down to his apartment, "Not the first time I had to face the possibility." Stiles muttered, like it wasn't something that hit Derek like a dropped anvil. Stiles was suddenly flying as he opened the door to his apartment, his back connecting oddly gently for the velocity with which he was moving, and Derek was looming over him, eyes hard and blazing, anger making him seem even more inhuman. 

" _What?!_ " Derek hissed. 

"When I was eight, my mom and I got into a car crash. She died. I broke my leg so badly that the doctors didn't know if I'd ever get the ability to walk back." Stiles told him, almost defiantly. Stiles's chin lifted, his eyes fierce. 

Derek released him, horror in his eyes, but Stiles just pulled him back in, wrapping him in his arms and slotting their mouths together, biting into Derek's mouth and sucking on his tongue. Stiles pulled himself in, allowing Derek to take his weight, his legs hooked low over Derek's thighs, Derek's back flexed under his hands as Stiles clung to him, the solid wall of heat driving him crazy. Derek's hands scrabbled over his back, hoisting him up further and gripping the back of his thigh to keep him there, pressing them hard and close. Derek bit kisses along the column of Stiles's throat, nuzzling behind his ear after a moment and simply breathing him in, the press of his body against Derek's utterly comforting. Stiles sighed happily, threading his fingers through Derek's hair and luxuriating into another kiss. Derek lifted him away from the wall easily, leaving the bags where they were and carrying Stiles to the bedroom blindly, his eyes closed in pleasure as Stiles ran clever fingers through his hair and over his neck, soft lips pressing hot kisses into his throat and along his jaw. One hand found Derek's collar, fumbling with the buttons as Stiles licked into Derek's mouth and bit lightly at his tongue, greed flashing in his eyes as Derek laid him down on the bed, suspended over him. 

Derek brushed Stiles's hands away, laying him open and deftly unclothing him, sucking kisses that flushed red over Stiles's pale skin and breathing in the scent of him, nose skimming his ribs and breath stirring goosebumps over his arms, down his torso. Stiles shuddered, whining in the back of his throat as Derek urged his legs down from around Derek's hips, sighing happily when Derek undid his pants and tugged them carefully down. 

"Would you let me take care of you?" Derek asked from Stiles's hip, tracing his fingertips over the sensitive skin of Stiles's inner thigh, teasing upwards, not nearly enough. 

Stiles swallowed at the look in Derek's eyes, his teeth pressing into his lower lip. "I haven't had anyone to take care of me since my mom died...I only know how to take care of everyone else." 

Derek ducked down, kissing the shadow of the bruise he'd left on Stiles's hip days before, speaking against it, "I need you safe, and I want you happy. Will you let me try?" 

Stiles's hand carded in his hair again, gripping tighter, drawing his eyes up. "Yes. I won't be good at it, but we can try." Derek's lips twitched as he knelt up and kissed Stiles, hooking an arm under him and lifting him up against Derek's chest, moving him up the bed and laying him against the pillows softly. As they broke apart, Derek drew his fingers over Stiles's cheek, eyes looking from the swollen, flushed mouth to those amber eyes, a smile playing on his mouth as he stole another kiss. 

"Go to sleep, Stiles." He breathed, kissing Stiles's forehead, his eyelashes, the corner of his mouth. Stiles's hand slipped into the swathe of skin he'd managed to reveal trying to get Derek's shirt apart, and Derek fit his hand around Stiles's bare thigh, kissing him long and deep. "I can't stay all night, but I'll stay until you're asleep." 

Stiles whined minutely in the back of his throat, rolling over when Derek urged him onto his side, listening as Derek quickly and efficiently divested himself of his clothes, sliding in behind him and curving around him, arms tight and warm, his mouth brushing over Stiles's shoulders and neck, breath stirring over his skin. Stiles tucked his hand around the place Derek's folded over his chest, Derek's warmth getting to him even with all that perfect, bare skin on display. Stiles sighed, trying to grasp at the nagging feeling of something forgotten and failing as he let the darkness engulf him. 

The first few pounding knocks on his door sounded like a dream to Stiles, not enough to break him to the surface. That came when he heard Derek call his name from the entrance of his apartment, too distressed, shaking him out of the last of his sleep. 

Stiles stumbled out of bed, pulling on pants and nearly falling over as he continued to try to walk through that process. Blinking muzzily, Stiles took in the appearance of Erica and Isaac standing with Derek in his kitchen, Derek looking too pale and desperate, sickly. "What happened?" Stiles demanded, stepping around Erica and Isaac to Derek immediately, looking him over though nothing was visible with his dark henley and leather jacket. Something dripped from the sleeve of Derek's jacket and Stiles blinked, looking down at what it was uncomprehendingly. "Blood?" 

"I got shot…" Derek told him, voice a rasp. "The bullet was poisoned. Wolfsbane." 

Stiles's eyebrows flew upwards, his eyes wide open and awake now, adrenaline better than coffee. Stiles helped Derek shrug out of the jacket with Isaac, rage coursing through him at the sight of the wound. "What the hell happened?" 

"We were there to keep an eye out for Allison. She came, and Isaac and I got her, but her aunt came, too." Erica told him. She flashed golden eyes and fangs, and Stiles felt that hit him like a ton of bricks, but wouldn't let himself dwell just yet. Isaac followed suit, and Stiles shook his head, turning his attentions back on Derek. 

"Allison's aunt...You mean Kate?" Stiles remembered her from the wedding. Remembered her too-predatory smile and the same feeling of wrongness creeping up his spine that had been there with every Argent he'd ever met. Stiles pulled the henley up, throwing it over his shoulder dismissively as he looked at the wound, the black veining up from the hole. "What do we need?" 

"A bullet. I have to...burn the wolfsbane, press the ash in the wound." Derek told him. Stiles nodded once, heading for his phone with a glance at Isaac. 

"Scott, hey, man, I need a favour." Stiles began, wetting a towel and cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear while he carefully cleaned the wound, getting the first-aid from under the kitchen sink and making a tourniquet. "I need one of every bullet Allison has stashed at your place, and any that Kate would've brought with her. I'm calling in the Lightsaber Incident, here, so no questions, please. No, it's not for ballistics or anything like that, I'd need her gun for that, I just need the bullets. Yeah, thanks, man. Good luck. Hurry, please." Stiles looked up at Derek, "I'm calling in the single biggest favour between us, so he knows it's fucking urgent. How long?"

"Should be a few hours…" Derek told him, sounding almost dizzy. Stiles nodded once, unseating him and bringing him into the livingroom, putting him on the couch there before he turned to Erica and Isaac, a hand on his hip and his brow raising expectantly. 

"Werewolves." They said in unison. 

Stiles sighed like he was getting a headache, turning to Derek and pointing at him, "You: in trouble. You two: all the 'splainin' to do, Lucy. But, first: coffee."

Derek looked like he was about to protest, but Stiles shot a glare his way and his mouth snapped shut obediently. 

Erica whistled lowly, laughing as Stiles stepped out of the room, "He's got you trained." 

"I will rip your throat out with my teeth." 

"Not in my apartment!"


	5. You Are the Space In My Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek choked, he hadn't been so close to crying since… "Laura...Laura found out...she figured it out after a couple years--we never knew who was working with her, that's why Laura's there now, but when she found--when she found out, Laura dropkicked me into every version of therapy until she found one that helped, she tried to go after Kate for statutory, tried to go after her for having broken the hunter's Code that only the killers are hunted. Kate killed the hunters that sided with us against her."

"I did _not_ like that!" Stiles flipped, shrill and flushed and wild-looking. Derek would've startled if he'd had it in him to do so; Stiles's hands closing around his bicep and hooked around his shoulders, dragging him upwards and draping him against him. "You're not allowed to get shot like that again--" Stiles's hand rubbed hard against Derek's tense shoulders, one hand gripped almost too tightly in his hair as his scent spiked with panic still. 

"I'm--'M fine, Stiles." Derek croaked. "It worked, I'm fine." Stiles's phone went off, Derek moving against him limply as Stiles tightened his hold and reached for it, keeping Derek against him obstinately. 

"Stilinski--Mattie, what?! Allison's under suspicion of planting--Erica...are they letting him go?!" Stiles was play acting until Detective Daehler replied to that, and then he was genuinely cringing. "IA is getting involved. _Great_. That's just...fantabulousticulous, now, isn't it? Just...be calm, be cool; neither of us have done anything wrong, and if this means Whittemore's not our man, then it's good we're not sending him down river." Stiles glanced at Derek, biting his lip, "I've done all my paperwork for everything--you? Yeah, then we have nothing to worry about. I know IA makes you jumpy; there's no one on the planet who isn't jumpy with Internal Affairs, Mattie, but we are not the ones being investigated. Check through everything, make sure it's all green-lights all the way, and be cooperative. Remember the last time IA was involved? We had that sniper next building over, and Peter ended up taking down, like, five drug ops?" 

Stiles started kissing Derek after he hung up, and refused to stop as he tossed his phone blindly, pulling Derek into him with greedy hands. "'M fine--" Derek managed, feeling his cheeks redden with the heat as Stiles pushed him into the couch and pulled his way over to straddle Derek's legs, kissing over his face with a desperation that frankly alarmed Derek. 

"Shower?" Stiles half-asked, half-ordered, sliding his hands over Derek's biceps, fingers careful around the hot skin of the freshly-healed bullet wound. Stiles whined slightly, and Derek was hit all over again at how badly Stiles had reacted to seeing him in danger. Stiles had been calm enough, steady and sure; it wasn't how he'd outwardly behaved, it was how his heartbeat had gone haywire, how his scent had been spiked through with worry and terror. Derek pulled Stiles flush against him, catching his lips from their frenzy and kissing him until Stiles was lax in his arms, colour flooded high in his cheeks, his lips swelling. 

Derek split his attention between keeping Stiles from falling over his own pants and divesting himself of his own as they stripped in the washroom, Stiles more invested in kissing him than he was anything else. "I'm with you. I'm here." Derek breathed, pressing Stiles's hand against his pulse. Derek nipped at his lips, "Calm down, Stiles." 

Stiles looked up at him from his thick fringe of lashes, fluttering with doubt for a moment before he folded into Derek's arms, pressing in tight like he was scared to trust Derek to take him. "Don't do that to me again." Stiles pled in a whisper. "You were so fucking pale, Derek, and then you wouldn't wake up…" 

"Your hand okay?" Derek found the hand in question, covering it with his own where it rested over Derek's heart. "Thanks for punching me…" 

Stiles sobbed out a laugh, "I'd do more than that to save your life, Derek." 

"You're a good man." Derek tipped Stiles's face up, kissing him long and slow, shuffling them backwards into the hot spray of the shower as steam filled the bathroom. Stiles shuddered into him with the change in temperature, gasping as Derek dropped his mouth to Stiles's pulse, licking and sucking with a lazy pace that had Stiles's whole body twitching against him, cock hard between them before long. Stiles gave a small sound as Derek's hands moved to his nipples, and the sound of it was enough temptation to use one arm to keep Stiles upright, bowed back for Derek to put his mouth to the hard nubs. Licking and sucking at one nipple while he teased the other with the pad of his thumb, Derek had to reach down sooner than he would've wanted, sounds too good and the sheer force of Stiles caring about him like he had making him too eager to take Stiles apart, to get him lost in pleasure. Stiles whined as Derek gripped him, his hips flinching. 

Stiles kissed Derek hard, groaning as Derek simply plucked him off his feet, pushing his back against the tiles. Stiles could feel Derek fighting with himself to slow down, to take his time kissing until neither of them could remember how to do anything but kiss. Lips twitching, Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek's shoulders, slowing himself down to make it easier. "We should be doing this in bed." Stiles sighed mournfully when he could, his voice arching off into a high sound of want as Derek bit at his shoulder. Derek's hands slipped from where he'd wrapped them around Stiles's upper thighs to a far more chaste grip around his hips, asking a question with nothing but a quiet noise. "You usually make me forget how to anything, Derek, slippery surfaces and the inability to viably stand don't bode well." 

"I wouldn't let you--"

"I'd like to make you forget how to anything, too." Derek made a needy sound, sucking on Stiles's tongue with an obvious rhythm. Stiles's easy sprawl turned into clutching handfuls of muscular back, his body bucking futilely in Derek's arms, unable to really move with the way Derek was holding him. Derek set him down, but kept him pinned to the wall as he reached between them. Stiles felt his body go tight as Derek began to viciously jack them both together, all efficiency to get them off and then carrying that same efficiency to get them cleaned up. The only reason Stiles got a towel at all was because they were right there and Derek was still in the process of turning to face him again after he'd stepped out of the shower first. For some reason Stiles couldn't quite pick out, his fingers forgot to unclench from around it as Derek yanked him off his feet, halfway up his chest, and carried him to the bedroom like a caveman, the towel dangling uselessly from his hand as Derek kissed him like he had done in the shower, Derek dumping them both, wet, onto the bed. Stiles sighed happily as he fit himself against Derek with ease, Derek's hand tugging in his hair and his tongue making fireworks behind Stiles's eyes seem like a very real possibility. 

Derek brought them off slower this time, letting Stiles take his time to take him apart before Derek knocked his hand away and jacked them both off again, slow but far less teasing than Stiles had been. Derek cursed quietly as he came, but Stiles could tell it wasn't a happy-curse. 

"Derek? What is it, what's wrong?" 

"N-Nothing--" Derek cut off as Stiles flipped them over, panic rising as he looked at Derek's arm--still healed--then started trying to find what caused the note of pain in his voice. 

"Derek, seriously, I need to know now." 

Derek hissed, but said nothing. It didn't matter, though, because Stiles's eyes caught on Derek's cock--or, more accurately, on the thick bulge growing on Derek's cock. "'S not supposed to happen, or...I don't know. I thought it wouldn't if I didn't...i-if I wasn't inside…" 

"You have a knot." Stiles breathed, colour blooming high in his cheeks, "You...I...when we fucked…"

"Last time, it happened, but I was holding off for so long that I could feel it coming every time I got too close. I didn't let myself come inside you--" 

"You fucked me until I passed out to hide the fact you have a knot." Stiles breathed, bending his head down until it rested face-first in the mattress, his back a long arching slope up to where he was still half-propped on his knees. 

"I'm so sorry." Derek whispered, and Stiles broke through the last of his shock at the sound. 

Stiles reared back up, eyes blazing, "Okay, this is how it's going to go down: you and I need to discuss the things we need to discuss, because this isn't a dealbreaker I just would appreciate some damn _warning_ before having you trapped inside me for fifteen minutes to a half-hour." Stiles could still see fear in Derek's eyes, falling forward onto his mouth and kissing him hard and dirty to emphasize his point. "Stop looking like I'm about to euthanize your puppy. I love you, you idiot, you're not scaring me off." Stiles muttered viciously...and then realized what he'd just said. 

Derek's ears actually turned slightly pink, but he didn't let himself smile, "I love you, too." 

Stiles scowled adorably at him for a moment before kissing him again. "I haven't asked this question in years," Stiles sniggered, "Can I touch it?" 

Derek groaned, but it held the affirmative, and Stiles reached down carefully, circling thumb and forefinger around it, squeezing just slightly to test the solidness. Derek's toes curled and he hissed, his eyes closed but the pleasure written over his features, easing Stiles's small panic that he'd reacted in pain. 

"Judging by the fact that you didn't do this during our failed attempt at a one-night-stand, I'm guessing this doesn't happen with everyone?" 

"O-Only you, for me." Stiles bent down to kiss him, releasing the knot mercifully, soothing his hands over Derek's stomach and up his side, gentle and caring. 

"It didn't happen in the shower, either." Stiles murmured as he settled down against Derek's body, pulling on his ridiculous arm until he was properly draped like a blanket over Stiles's back. 

Derek hummed quietly, amused at Stiles's arranging even if he was still treating every moment like the other shoe was about to drop and crush him, "You didn't touch me as much in the shower. I'll only ever knot with you." Stiles didn't flinch, startle, tense, or move, settling into him instead, and Derek dared to tighten his hold around him, drawing him in closer. "Why did you tell me your worst injury was breaking your collarbone?"

"Because it actually still aches from time to time when the weather goes downhill fast. My leg...I don't remember it hurting so much, I just remember being scared of not being able to walk or run again…I know that it did hurt, probably worse than my collarbone with the sheer amount of physio had to do on it, but the collarbone goes down as worse because as injuries go, the leg was really overshadowed." Stiles shrugged. "'S just what I think of first." Stiles carefully hadn't mentioned his mom, and Derek wasn't going to press it for all the money in the world. "I made notes...you should annotate my notes, tell me what's real and what isn't." 

Derek pressed a kiss to the back of Stiles's shoulder, "Okay." Silence stretched out for a long moment, only just not long enough for them to fall asleep, " What is the Lightsaber Incident?" 

Stiles guffawed, "That is between Scott, me and Dr. Deaton, the vet of Beacon Hills. Which is to say: You don't wanna know. I don't even want to know, but I do know, and when Scott told me he was working ER I laughed in his face for ten minutes before I could compose myself." 

"He's a doctor?" 

"Nurse. Scott is loveable as all get out, but in no way focussed enough to have gotten to doctor. He and I followed in our parents' footsteps: my single dad is a cop, his single mom is a nurse. We stopped trying to set them up when we were ten and spent three days together without interruption and I nearly killed him with a flannel shirt and a Batman action figure." Derek snorted a laugh, and Stiles smiled. "Allison transferred in, and Scott lost all ability and inclination to focus on anything but her. We used to tease him about being a kept man of hers...and the Allison he'd fallen in love with would've laughed, too, but tried to make sure he got a good education and a good job for himself. Allison's mom died not long after they came to Beacon Hills, though, and the Allison Scott loved is dead and gone, too." Stiles told him mournfully. "Allison's Aunt Kate and her grandpa moved back with them, and...she just...changed." 

Derek's throat clicked as he swallowed, tensing slightly, "Kate…" Stiles wriggled until he could see Derek, his eyes wide and worried. Derek squeezed his own tight shut so he wouldn't have to see Stiles's face as he spoke, "Kate burnt my house down...she was my first love...and she--" Derek was cut off there, Stiles making a small, devastated sound of pain that had the instinct to protect absolutely vicious. Stiles bounced up, wrapping his arms and legs around Derek in a full-body hug that was almost enough to flip Derek over on the mattress, his fingers carding through Derek's hair as he breathed into the curve of Derek's neck. 

"Derek?" Stiles pulled his fingers slowly through Derek's hair, soothing and gentle. 

Derek choked, he hadn't been so close to crying since… "Laura...Laura found out...she figured it out after a couple years--we never knew who was working with her, that's why Laura's there now, but when she found--when she found out, Laura dropkicked me into every version of therapy until she found one that helped, she tried to go after Kate for statutory, tried to go after her for having broken the hunter's Code that only the killers are hunted. Kate killed the hunters that sided with us against her." 

Stiles made a series of gentling noises in the back of his throat, pressing kisses into the slope of Derek's shoulder, fitting them tight together. He knew the agonizing limbo between knowing there was no blood on your hands, but feeling, always, like you were about to drown in it. He'd felt like that when his mother had died; he'd felt like that when a jury decided the guilty innocent enough to go for new victims. He knew exactly how useless it was to be told it wasn't your fault, but he couldn't stop himself from trying anyway, "Something as evil as Kate Argent doesn't deserve to live, Derek. Or she deserves to live in agony." 

Derek hugged him more fiercely, drained from having told Stiles something that Laura had had to figure out on her own; that his shrinks had been told about from her but had never actually gotten out of him. The angry, guilty Derek that Laura had fought him out of rose like bile, a spectre trying to make him rebel against what Stiles was bringing out of him. Had they met years ago, before Derek had set off Laura's warning bells, before he'd fought his way through most of the guilt and the sheer panic that came with the possibility Laura would find out what he'd done, Derek would have hated what Stiles was doing to him; what he was bringing out again. 

Being really happy; being really safe; being really loved. Derek hadn't been those things since the night his house had burned with his family inside. Not until Stiles lulled him to sleep with soft touches of fingertips and lips, holding him like he'd break and like it'd take Stiles breaking for him to be taken away.


	6. A Little More Bite and a Little Less Bark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, to trekwolf. 
> 
> In other news: I haven't killed anyone yet, and it's headed to week three of my being without much internet. Sainthood or medal?

Being locked in a linen cupboard with the girl of his dreams would have been so much better for Stiles if he wasn't sleeping with a man he couldn't have dreamt up. "So, um, Lydia, I love you dearly; you're my best friend, but I think your fiancé is trying to kill me." 

Stiles felt Lydia's head drop to his shoulder, tears splashing down her cheeks, "Stiles, I don't know what's going on." Stiles wrapped his arms around her, cradling her gently. 

"Lyds, just breathe, sweetheart. It's all going to be okay." 

" _How_?!" 

Directly on the heels of that question, Stiles heard a roar tear through the enraged hissing of Jackson's trying to get through to them. "You know how your fiancé turned into a giant lizard? My boyfriend is kind of a werewolf--OW!" 

"Boyfriend?! When did you fucking get a _boyfriend_?! Why wasn't I told--Oh, hell no." 

"OW! Stop hitting me!" 

"You start banging the hot defense lawyer and you don't tell me--" 

"You weren't talking to me!" Stiles snapped, effectively cutting the tirade to the quick. Stiles looked to Derek, framed in the doorway, panting from having thrown the kamina around the room before it'd left. "Did it touch you?" Derek shook his head, eyes still glowing blue.

"Got away. Why did it attack?" Derek asked, helping Stiles out of the closet and drawing him close. 

"Don't know. I don't think Jackson's got any control over it, though. It didn't seem like a voluntary thing for him. Started when he saw me."

Derek froze, his features stony, "It's after you now." 

Stiles nodded, moving closer into Derek as he took stock of what needed to be done. "Lydia, if you see anything...gooey, put on rubber gloves to deal with it, it's paralytic. You're safe with Jackson yourself, but if he does show back up...call." Derek read the doubt in Stiles's eyes and frowned deeply, catching his hand. "Derek and I should go. It's after me now, so I'd like to find some higher ground from which to kick its ass." 

"Stiles--" Lydia started, but he simply shrugged her off, stepping into Derek's side and leading them out silently. "No--"

"I don't really want to hear it, Lyds. It's _fine_. Stay safe, I'll call you if I don't die." Derek made a snap decision to get them out rather than confronting Lydia on whatever she was doing to his mate, pulling Stiles along out the nearest exit of the townhouse and matching his long, angry strides silently when they reached the bleary light of day. "I'm fine." 

Derek didn't say a word, directing Stiles to Derek's haphazardly parked car once he'd glanced around for Stiles's beat-up Jeep and come up empty. 

"I don't want to go back to the apartment. I can't think right now." Derek reached over the gearshift, taking Stiles's hand in his, rubbing his pulse gently. 

"Tell me." 

Stiles huffed, shaking his head, "I just...Lydia asked me to come out here, I came; Lydia asked me to be her man of honour even though I was in love with her for years, I said yes; I love her and she's my best friend, but when she excommunicated me because I'd followed the trail of clues to the douche bag she's always chosen over me...I want her to see that I don't need her for me to be happy. I don't need her like she's been acting like she needs me. I'm in love with a goddamn werewolf who happens to be a very hot and very successful defense lawyer, and I don't need her in my life to make it happy." 

Derek reached up, moving his hand to the back of Stiles's neck, "No, you don't need her to be happy...but it helps. Her excommunicating you is something that makes me incredibly pissed off, but it sounds to me like Lydia needs the people in her life as close as she can get them, or she loses some control."

Sighing, Stiles leaned into the touch until Derek had to take his hand away. "I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think right now." 

"Well, I might be able to help with that." Derek smirked slowly, a grin spreading like sunlight over Stiles's features in return.

"That was incredibly cheesy." 

"Shut up, you love it." Derek slid his hand back into Stiles's on Stiles's thigh as he pulled into the parking garage of the nicest hotel in the city. 

"Of course the Whittemores would put you up here." Stiles snorted. Derek grinned wickedly, parking and tugging Stiles over for a kiss before letting him get out of the car. 

"The trial is technically over. We can be seen together." Derek hummed. 

"Let's not be seen for a few hours; I'd hate to have to arrest us for public indecency." 

Derek shrugged, playing along, "I'd be able to get us off." 

Stiles squawked in disbelief at the line, laughing as they slid out of the car. Derek held one arm open, pulling Stiles in when he slid under it, kissing his temple with a devilish little grin. 

"So, in the interests of keeping you safe and alive, I say you take some time off work and stay with me." 

"I'd love that, but I can't. I've been transferred to Beacon Hills PD. Have to get everything ready for the move."

"Need a super-strong werewolf?" 

"It'd be greatly appreciated." Stiles told him lecherously, sliding a hand over his bicep while they trouped into an elevator. 

Stiles tucked himself into the corner of the elevator, leaning into Derek when he came to stand beside him, simply relaxing into him. Derek rubbed over his arm, the thick black wool coat Stiles wore as a winter coat hinting at the warmth hiding under his hand. Stiles sighed as he laid his head against Derek's collarbone, the floors ticking away to Derek's suite. 

"When I left Beacon Hills, my dad and I had had a fight bad enough that I haven't gone back to visit since." Stiles told him in a small voice, "We talk on the phone, but nothing was quite right after…It's gonna be a whole world of awkward." Stiles snorted, turning his face into Derek's chest, the small gap of unzipped leather jacket letting him press into Derek's t-shirt instead. "I understand if--"

"I want to meet him, we aren't going too fast for me--are you kidding? I'm the reason we're going as fast as we are, I fully expected you to run." 

"I hate running. Screw good cardio, I have an incredibly hot boyfriend, I can get cardio in other ways, much more fun ways." 

"Incorrigible." 

"Lawyer-word." 

Derek snorted, the two of them walking to his door and Derek unlocking it still mostly wrapped up together. "I can't actually let the maids in, I don't want them to see the grisly crime scene photos and then sue me for therapy money." Stiles shrugged, because it was mostly clean, the kitchenette looked almost untouched, and the bed was unmade, but those are the only indicators that Derek had been doing his own clean up. 

Crime scene photos and reports were pushed into a cork board Derek propped against a chair of the dinette set in the corner, the table riddled with the ordered chaos of someone looking for answers in ME reports and background checks. "If this is your version of messy, you're going to be doing all future clean-up." 

"I've seen the hardened-cop version of that, I am not afraid." 

Stiles chuckled, turning to him and leaning up for a kiss, "You should be." 

They got rid of clothes like overeager teenagers, and Derek laid Stiles out on his stomach, kissing his way up from his ankle to upper thigh, rubbing at his legs and lower back, soothing him and making him relax. "For a fairly brilliant woman, Lydia Martin was an idiot about you." 

Stiles could feel himself get warm, the long-dreamed of fantasy of having someone love him like that coming true. "I don't think she'd agree." 

"I don't care. She doesn't see you like I do. She doesn't get to have you. You're mine now, not hers. You were never really hers to begin with." Stiles shivered, Derek's mouth brushing over the bottom of his ribcage, his thumb rubbing up Stiles's spine. 

Stiles slowly made himself just go lax against the bed, letting Derek do what he wanted to take care of him. "Was I always yours?" 

"That's not how it works, but I think it ended up that way anyway." Derek told him, running his nose up the line of Stiles's spine and inhaling. "If you'd already chosen someone else; if you chose someone else now, the bond would never have started, or it would go away. I wouldn't find another person who I could mate, but mating is rare anyway." 

"What if you wanted someone else?" 

"Never happen." 

"Derek." 

"The same. It never would have started. But now that it has, it's next to impossible for me to back down. I want you. I want all of you, if you'll let me. The point of mates is that the person a wolf's mated with is what they need; I laugh when I'm with you, I feel at ease when you touch me. You make me better. Stronger. Happier. For me, there's only you." 

Stiles twisted then, kissing Derek hard and deep, coaxing them to fit together face-to-face with his arms wrapped around Derek's shoulders. "The reverse is true." 

"I know." Derek smiled, nuzzling at his throat as he hoisted Stiles up against him, slipping his fingers down. Stiles moaned in the back of his throat, hiding his face in Derek's throat. 

"Will you knot me?" Stiles asked hazily. 

"Do you want me to?" Stiles bit his lip, nodding with colour burning in his cheeks, "Werewolves can't get sick…"

"I want that, too." Stiles whispered. Derek rumbled lowly, hands clinging to Stiles's hips for a minute while he fought to slow himself down. "I want a lot of things I shouldn't want yet." 

Derek's lips twitched as he pulled them together, kissing him in agreement. "I want them, too." 

Stiles spread his legs, slotting Derek between his thighs and sighing as Derek's hand curled around his legs, wrapping them around his hips. 

"How do you want to do this?" 

"Doggie-style?" Stiles quipped, grinning as Derek groaned into his shoulder, nipping the skin. 

"I don't understand _why_ I love you, or _how_ it is that you make me laugh, because you aren't actually funny--" 

"You hurt me in my heart!" Stiles wailed dramatically, trying and failing not to giggle as Derek reared up, biting the slight curve of pectoral over his heart, much less defined than Derek's, but apparently there enough that it made Stiles hiss to have Derek's teeth digging into it. Derek licked over the mark and nuzzled it, kissing a soft trail up to his mouth. "Seriously, though, won't it be better?" 

"Define 'better'." 

"Your knot lasts how long?" 

"Twenty minutes."

"I am not going to be your pillow. You might be a light sleeper, but you still weigh enough to give me a severe case of being pancaked. Death by suffocation due to sex-coma...actually doesn't sound like a half-bad way to die, but I'd still rather avoid it." 

"These words come out of your mouth and I have to wonder if you actually realize what you're saying, and I shudder to think that you've actually thought this through." 

"Are you kidding? I like that you're bigger than me, feels safe when you're on top of me: I just want not to die while we both recover from the mind-blowing orgasms." Derek dropped his head to Stiles's shoulder like a man in pain. Stiles poked his shoulder tentatively and Derek grunted. "In the immortal words of the greatest king to ever live: a little less conversation, a little more action, please." 

"You--" Derek cut himself off with a huff, shaking his head as he reached for the lube. 

Stiles cackled. But not for long.


	7. I'll Be the Fire That'll Get You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because, if you flirted with anyone else the way you have with me, I'd kill you."

"A mob." 

Derek sighed, long-suffering and completely unjustified, "Stiles--" 

"A _mob_. Not just a mob-mob, no: a fucking supernatural hunter mob. These psychopaths don't even get paid for killing the people they kill! _They_ just do it for shits and giggles!" 

"You don't have to--" 

"A _mob_ , Derek. Of crazy people with guns! Who actively want to kill you! And not just you, oh no! Erica and Isaac, too! My best friend shacking up with one of you fuzzballs as well as me, it's the least I can do to pull a few strings and keep us all from being shot." Stiles's alarmed, panicked features slid into a cloying grin that honestly made Derek worry more than the panic had.

"It's not really a mob. They're not gangsters--" 

"It's a syndicate run by a core family the patriarch of whom is known to have had presidents and beat cops alike in his pocket. Explain to me how the Argents aren't the heads of a fucking mob?" 

Stiles knocked his hip sideways, Derek letting it push him backwards so that he was against the counter, drawing Stiles in for a kiss as he did. Stiles grinned against Derek's lips, threading his fingers through Derek's hair. "They're not a mob because we're going to take them down. Because we're going to level them." 

"We're going to _win_." Stiles breathed in agreement, fingers curling on his biceps as he kissed deeper. "And we won't even have to go Frank Castle to do it." 

Derek gripped Stiles's waist, the movement blindingly fast and easy as he set Stiles up on the counter and kissed him like he wasn't ever going to get to kiss him again, "I wouldn't have anyone else, but God, why'd it have to be you?" 

Stiles laughed. "Because, if you flirted with anyone else the way you have with me, I'd kill you." 

"Jealous?" 

"Jealousy is for people who aren't secure. Possessive." Stiles corrected petulantly, "Now: you have to go make nice with your ex-employers, and I have an interview with Internal Affairs." 

"And? When the torture ends? Should I tell you what's in store after your little stint in being dutiful?" Stiles was pretty sure looking in Derek's eyes when they were that mischievous would result in a very unhelpful boner for the rest of the goddamn day, but it was a price he was willing to pay to attack Derek's mouth before he could say another word. Laughing as they pulled apart for air, Derek nuzzled into his cheek, lips skirting over his ear before his teeth caught on the lobe and tugged. "I'm going to take you apart. I'll be slow about it, I'll make it _last_ until you can't so much as speak--until you can't remember your name." 

Stiles whimpered into his shoulder pitifully, because Stiles had been pretty sure that that was what Derek had spent the night before doing, but the promise that it was _more_ , that more was actually possible, made him feel like he'd been fucked open for hours and left wanting anyway. 

"Have a good day at work, Stiles." Derek murmured, voice a smooth purr as he pressed a biting kiss into the sensitive curve of Stiles's neck, hard enough to sting, but not enough to leave a mark. 

"Bastard." 

Derek's laugh rang out of the apartment, "You love it!" 

The moment Stiles got into Matt's car, he knew something was very wrong. 

It was part instinct, but mostly the fact that once the doors locked, Matt pulled a gun on him. 

"Mattie, what--" 

"You couldn't just let Jackson be a _gift_." Matt seethed, "You couldn't just let the evidence speak for itself. You let Hale use you to get his client off." Matt's voice was choked, shaking almost as bad as his hand, "I don't know how you managed to escape for so long, either. I don't care." The seething reached a fever pitch, and Stiles wanted to grab his own gun out, but something heavy and painful pulled at his heart, instinct roaring that Matt would shoot the moment he moved. 

"How is Jackson ever a gift, Mattie?" Stiles breathed, ignoring the comment about Derek. Part of him had known; he'd just wanted to keep him, to ride it until the wheels fell off. It didn't make Jackson Whittemore any more guilty. "He was the wrong man." 

"He killed them!" Matt boomed, "He killed all of them--"

"Why?" Stiles whispered, "Why would you want them dead?" 

Matt came up to a stop light, shaking as he turned tear-brimmed eyes on him, "Because _they watched_." 

The question 'what did they watch' was on Stiles's tongue as they started through the intersection, and it was a miracle of god he didn't bite his tongue off in the impact of the black SUV that shot through the red and T-boned them, sending their sedan skittering over the damp gravel. 

Stiles held on long enough to see Matt's broken neck and bloodied features staring blankly at him from between the crunched-in driver's side door and the steering wheel. He also held on long enough to see the man who'd organized for this attempt on his life. 

Gerard Argent.


	8. This Is Crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter after this one, possibly a sequel to come later, let me know. Enjoy, lovelies.

Two New York City detectives died in a horrific car crash on their way in to work. The news was abuzz. 

Derek found out when Lydia came bursting into his brunch with the Whittemores, her poison-green eyes blazing through tears. Erica, Isaac, Lydia, and Derek met up in Erica's office a half-hour later without knowing exactly how they'd managed to get from their point As to their point B. "The car went up in flames." Erica whimpered. 

"Scott...I had to sedate him, called his mom so she could tell me how." Isaac whispered. 

Lydia raged, "He's not dead. I refuse to believe this. The little bastard's flirted with it since we were kids, but this...this isn't how the story ends!" 

Derek calmly took Lydia's flailing fists, curling her under his arm as the fight broke through her and left her pale and trembling, "You're right. He's not dead. I would have felt it if he was." Derek mumbled through numb lips. 

Erica scoffed through her nose before she could stop herself, "Mating doesn't work like that." 

"Erica, my uncle went catatonic and died of sheer force of will when he lost my aunt. You're not a born wolf, you don't bond the same way we do simply because the wolf's secondary to you, not the other half." Derek snapped, "If Stiles had died, I'd be _gone_. Now, what are we going to do to find him?" 

~

"You know, I plan on putting a bullet through your head, whore." Stiles spat, rage dulling the pain as Kate Argent toyed with a human to torture. 

The voltage ratcheted up, arcing through Stiles's body. "Those are not nice words." Kate admonished, "Now, why would little you want to kill me?" 

"Because you're a psychotic fuckwit who slept with a sixteen-year-old boy in order to kill his family? Because your entire fucking family creeps me out? Because your niece is honestly the worst damn police captain to ever captain, fictional ones fucking included? You'd kill me, if I wasn't useful to get your little golden girl back. Just like you killed my partner...who, admittedly, was trying to kill me, too, but that's really more a one-off, my last partner retired after a triple-bypass." Stiles's voice went tight as a knife slid through the soft of his arms, so cold it burned. "I just want to tell you that I'm going to kill you, because when it happens, I want you to take it to your grave that I am the one that will put you down like the bitch you are." 

Kate's talon-long nails scratched into his skin as she slapped him across the mouth, blood in his mouth. " _I'm_ the bitch? You let that animal fuck you--" 

Stiles burst out laughing, "It's ironic: Derek and I were discussing the difference between jealousy and possessiveness just this morning!" 

The cattle prod stabbed into the curve just before the hill of Stiles's ass was not a welcome development; signalling the arrival of Gerard Argent once more. 

Stiles let himself slump like it'd been too much, and Kate's nails were daggers over his scalp as she ran her fingers through his hair and then yanked to bring his head up, sneering, "Don't play coy, baby; we do know what a human can take." 

Naked, half-frozen, covered in blood and sweat, Stiles laughed instead of screaming. 

~

Stiles's lolling head tilted slightly at the sound of the world banging in around him, blood down his cheek and Kate's fingernails dug into his jaw. 

Stiles smirked bloodily, turning his head slightly to scowl at her, "Monsters make great bedfellows, asshat." He wheezed, the door banging into the opposite wall and a monster the likes of which Stiles had never even dreamt of before bursting in with blood on its black fur. 

Consciousness left him as he was propped against a blazingly hot shoulder, the bonds biting into his wrists and ankles cut loose so fast he fell out of the chair and into the wall of heat around him. Stiles was out of it as Erica put her hand through Kate's chest and tore her heart out; missed the entire band of hunters with the Argents fell under the head-on attack of a ragtag bunch of werewolves and an Alpha that wasn't theirs. He didn't know that Derek put a bullet through the Alpha's head when he tried to block their path. 

And no one realized that the only person to slip free was Gerard, nursing a grudge and his bloodlust denied.


	9. I Wouldn't Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You should go home, sleep in my bed so that when I come home it smells like you." 
> 
> "I'll sleep in your bed when you sleep in your bed, and it'll smell like me anyway." Derek murmured, "I'm not going anywhere, Stiles."

"I do not like the hospital, why do I keep ending up here?" Stiles moaned before he even opened his eyes. 

Derek wanted to run. He wanted to slip his hand free and leave and never, ever put Stiles in danger ever again. Stiles's grip on his hand creaked bones, might've broken his hand if he'd had a different grip on it, and when Stiles did open his eyes, he looked incensed. 

"I just got out of being tortured by a geriatric, you're _not_ leaving me now." Stiles croaked. "Get down here, kiss me better. _Now_." 

"Bossy." Derek laughed. Stiles chuckled, tugging at Derek until he complied, leaning down and kissing him until Stiles was loose and lax, lazy with breathlessness. Derek fought back tears of utter relief, wanting to hold Stiles so bad it was an ache, "When you get out of here, I'm never letting you out of my sight again." Derek sighed. 

"When I get out of here, I'm not letting you out of my bed for a year." Stiles breathed against Derek's lips, a bandaged hand tugging gently on Derek's ridiculous, adorable ears. "It wasn't you, Derek. It wasn't your fault they snapped me up." Stiles laid his hand against Derek's heart, still wrapped up in Derek's, a small smile tugging at his lips, "I love you."

"We killed everyone holding you, Stiles. I killed the Alpha helping us," Derek's eyes flashed red instead of blue and Stiles's eyes widened, his heart missing a beat, "Matt's dead, there was almost nothing left by the time they got the car fire under control. Allison's staying in prison. Kate's dead...Erica tore her heart out." Stiles reached up with his bandaged hand, wrapping injured fingers in Derek's hair. 

"Breathe, Derek. Take a breath." 

"Stiles--"

Stiles tweaked his ear, eyes widening in a dare to keep disobeying him. Derek rolled his eyes, but inhaled and exhaled dramatically to appease him, "Matt told me he was controlling Jackson somehow; you were right about the set-up being a gift for me. I don't know what the motive was, but Matt said they'd watched something, stood by probably. As for Kate: I'm just sorry I didn't get to shoot her." Stiles's hand fell to Derek's cheek, brushing gentle fingers under his eye, "So...you're an Alpha now?" Derek caught his hand, nodding before he kissed Stiles's thumb, "What does that mean?"

Derek swallowed, "Erica and Isaac...they've joined my pack. Laura's alright, though she laughed her ass off at me for it. We'll have to work something out between us so that we can both be Alpha, but unpaired to each other. An Alpha without a pack is dangerous--any wolf without one is. Unstable. The Alpha I killed had no pack." 

Stiles nodded slightly, "Can I be in your pack?" 

The backs of Derek's fingers brushed over Stiles's throat, the bruises and almost-gouges garroted there. He lowered his head, kissing the marks gently, breathing him in, "You're my mate." He whispered. 

Stiles laid his hand on Derek's shoulder, relaxing as he touched him, "I don't want the bite...but I'll be yours." 

Derek nodded, his nose trailing back and forth along Stiles's jaw, "I love you, Stiles." 

"I love you, too." Stiles whispered, "I wish you could hold me." 

"I wish I could, too, Stiles. We'll try to get you released as soon as possible." Derek told him, "Your father's on his way from California." 

Stiles groaned, "He didn't threaten to shoot you, did he?" 

"He didn't threaten me with anything specific, just that my body would never be found." Derek smiled, pressing kisses to Stiles's hand, down his wrist and arm; cast, bandage, or no. Stiles had tears in his eyes as he watched Derek kiss him better, hunching in on himself. "I'm not going anywhere, Stiles. I'm staying right here for as long as you are. I won't let anyone hurt you like this again, Stiles, not for as long as I'm alive." 

Stiles broke then, quietly cracking into tears. 

"Can you do this?" Derek begged quietly, bending and kissing his mouth, "Stiles--"

"I'm...I can do this. I love you. I just...Derek--" Derek held his hand up against his lips as Stiles gasped desperately, dashing tears from his eyes, "They did things to you...Kate killed your family, and she would've tortured you if it hadn't been me. Derek--" 

"Stiles, stop. Breathe." Derek pressed Stiles's fingers into his pulse, "I'm more safe than you are. I don't know how to justify staying with you when it would only put your life in danger." 

"Derek, my life is in danger just by living; don't. Please, don't leave me. I love you: Stay. Stay with me. I can do this. I can." 

"Stiles, don't make me call McCall to come and sedate you. I shouldn't have brought it up. I don't even want to think about ever having to leave you." Derek told him, "I get the horrible feeling I'm going to be selfish about you." 

Stiles nodded, "Good. Please, be selfish." 

Derek smirked from under his lashes, laying his head down near Stiles's hip and moving into his hand when Stiles reached down to thread his fingers through Derek's hair. "Your transfer's been put on hold, but I've arranged the move. Scott told me he's hoping for a job in Beacon Hills, too. Isaac and Erica are coming with us, of course. Lydia, too. I had to bodily remove her from the room when she refused to go home." Stiles brushed his thumb under the dark bags under Derek's eyes, curling his fingers around Derek's ear and rubbing, "Three days." 

"You should go home, sleep in my bed so that when I come home it smells like you." 

"I'll sleep in your bed when you sleep in your bed, and it'll smell like me anyway." Derek murmured, "I'm not going anywhere, Stiles." 

~

The warm weight of Stiles leaning into him as they walked up to the apartment felt good. Derek supported Stiles's weight, hugging him close as they rode the elevator upwards, away from Derek's pack and Stiles's friends. Stiles swayed even though he was being supported by Derek, and Derek pulled him entirely against his chest, opening his jacket and letting Stiles bury into the warmth with his bright red ears and nose, his pink cheeks. The winter chill coming off of Stiles felt good as he buried into Derek's warmth like he'd been left to exposure. "It should not be this tiring to just be upright." 

"We'll get upstairs and put you to bed, Stiles. I'll lay down with you." 

"You're bribing me." Stiles accused, and Derek smiled at the sensation of Stiles's grin against his neck. 

"I'm innocent, officer, I swear." 

Stiles laughed and it even sounded tired. Derek took as much weight as he could and continue to preserve Stiles's dignity, bringing them inside. "It was bad enough you had to help me shower--" 

"We're not having this argument." Derek cut him off, "First of all: I'm protecting your dignity by not flat-out carrying you right now, like I want to, so we can keep from trying to destroy mine by a man who argues for a living getting into and probably losing a fight with a cop; secondly, if I had a problem with bathing with you, I wouldn't have done it in the first place, it doesn't matter to me if we have sex or not, which brings me to our third issue; I love you. I love you because you're ridiculous and over-caffeinated and utterly you. I don't need the sex to love you. I don't need the sex to want to be close to you. It's just a perk that we usually have wall-to-wall marathons. I will take care of you for as long as you let me, and I'll be yours for as long as you want me. I want both to be forever. Clear?"

Stiles looked up at him through huge amber eyes, wrapping his arms around Derek's neck, "Crystal." 

Derek created a nest of pillows and blankets on Stiles's bed and helped him take his clothes off, utterly silent again at the sight of Stiles's wounds. Derek put him to bed and climbed in himself, reaching his hand out to Stiles's chest as he tried to get comfortable, black veins threading up Derek's arm. "I'm only taking your pain, Stiles, it's okay: calm down." He murmured softly, "I'm not in danger, neither are you." 

Stiles went lax against the pillows, the painlessness taking all tension out of him. "But if you're taking my pain, does that mean you're in pain now?" 

"More like it's pressure. Not quite pain." Stiles settled into Derek's chest as he laid down. 

"I feel bad you got stuck with me as an invalid."

"Sponge bath or shower tomorrow?" 

Stiles groaned, smacking at him with his cast. Derek caught his arm, kissing his knuckles then laying his arm down with their hands wrapped together. "You're vile." 

"Evil. Also: I'm thinking sponge bath. It's easier than keeping us upright."

"Derek--"

Derek stirred at the tone of his voice, "Stiles, stop. Let me take care of you."

Stiles sniffled, "I...I just...it's not fair that you have to take care of me, when I won't ever get to take care of you." 

"You do, Stiles. You will." Derek kissed the tip of his nose, his lips. "Go to sleep, heal for me. Be safe for a few hours." 

"I don't want the dreams," Stiles whispered, "you can't keep me safe from those." 

"Yes, I can. I'm the Alpha." Derek muttered, "Those monsters in your mind are no match for me." Derek flashed crimson eyes, smiling at him, and Stiles snorted. 

"I'm sorry."

Derek kissed his forehead. "I haven't slept in an actual bed since you got admitted, Stiles, having a nap is not a hardship for me at this point." 

Stiles yawned, "You shouldn't have stayed there the whole time. I shouldn't have kept you there the whole time." 

"I think you're going to find it hard to get rid of me, Stilinski." 

Stiles's voice was high, reedy with sleep, and he was a relaxed weight against Derek's chest. "Promise?" 

Derek pressed a kiss to his hair, laying his cheek against it and tightening his arms around Stiles's frame. "Promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fin. 
> 
> Somewhere in the beginning someone mentioned they'd want a sequel. If that still stands, please leave a comment as such at the bottom, and I'll work on it. If not, I hope you enjoyed what you read. 
> 
> Infinite x's and o's, my freaky darlings.


End file.
